Al Qaeda's attack on Madrid, for example, was funded by the sale of the
drug Ecstasy. And Moisés Naím, in his new book, Illicit, details how
globalization has fostered the development of a huge criminal economy
that boasts a technologically leveraged global supply chain (like
Wal-Mart's) and can handle everything from human trafficking (Eastern
Europe) to illicit drugs (Asia and South America), pirated goods
(Southeast Asia), arms (Central Asia), and money laundering
(everywhere). Naím puts the value of that economy at between $2
trillion and $3 trillion a year. He says it is expanding at seven times
the rate of legitimate world trade.

...

Security will become a function of where you live and whom you work
for, much as health care is allocated already. Wealthy individuals and
multinational corporations will be the first to bail out of our
collective system, opting instead to hire private military companies,
such as Blackwater and Triple Canopy, to protect their homes and
facilities and establish a protective perimeter around daily life.
Parallel transportation networks--evolving out of the time-share
aircraft companies such as Warren Buffett's NetJets--will cater to this group, leapfrogging its
members from one secure, well-appointed lily pad to the next.

The rich bastards are getting away again ;-)

There is no one at the moment who has thought deeper about these issues including the influence of Accelerating Change on these scenarios than John Robb. It is going to be very interesting.

Once I am finished watching them all (which may take another week yet) I will be blogging about them all, but for now here's my comment on Hanson's talk:

<<
In the third talk, Robin Hanson's covers economics and uploading - and he is much less "sloppy" (his word) than other analysis's I have seen, in that he's thought through what makes a big difference (labour, human capital) and what doesn't (energy, materials). He has an interesting water/rising tide analysis which is similar to my essay on Robotics and Global Scenarios. He talks about the traditional brain-scan and simulate strategy for uploading - in general I agree that that method is the easiest way to "AI": and it has personal implications, in as much as the details of your brain WILL matter in such a scenario. Hanson has a laser-like focus on the economic implications of this kind of uploading, which is a refreshing change from the philosophic topics that most people usually address. Astonishing, really - economics doubling time at 2 weeks! His talk is probably the most interesting talk I have seen in this collection yet.
>>

He doesn't spend any time justifying his view that matter/energy are not the thing to focus on for the future, but inside his own world of economics he is probably correct: regardless of how we solve the energy problem, it's impact on the wider economy will necessairly be small. What a unique view point :-)